Many potentially harmful materials, such as swimming pool chemicals, are packaged and sold to the public in pails or buckets of two, five or ten gallon capacities. As a result, buckets containing these material often are kept in the household of the person who has the swimming pool where small children may be able to gain access to the contents with harmful results. Some of the swimming pool chemicals are provided in large pellets, say two or three inches in size, so that any lid for a pail containing such materials must be readily removable or must have a "wide-mouth" opening through which the large pellets or tablets can be dispensed. In such a case it is relatively easy for a small child to gain access to the dangerous contents. Other chemicals are provided in granular or powdered form and are equally dangerous to small children.
Packages for dangerous particulate chemicals consisting of pails with lids thereon previously have been suggested and, in some cases, the lids and pails are so designed that it is almost impossible to remove a lid from a pail. In these cases some kind of dispensing opening must be provided so that the householder can dispense the content material.
In addition, packages of this general type must meet the requirements of several governmental agencies such as the Federal Department of Transportation which tests the packages severely to be certain that if such a package is dropped it will not burst open. Additionally, the Consumer Products Safety Commmision examines packages for dangerous chemicals so as to be certain that the actual purchaser or consumer of the product is protected to the greatest possible extent. The Environmental Protection Agency also considers these packages to make certain that they comply with the rules of that organization.
It is, therefore, the principal object of the instant invention to provide a package for harmful particulate materials consisting of a pail and a lid for the pail that is very tightly retained on the pail so as to be difficult if not impossible to remove, the lid having a "wide-mouth" dispensing opening so as to permit the dispensing of large chemical pellets and the opening having a child-resistant closure so that a small child cannot gain access to the contents of the package.
From another standpoint, the instant invention has as its object the provision of a child-resistant lid for a pail, the pail being intended to contain dangerous particulate material.